{"id":950,"date":"2021-04-05T11:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/?p=950"},"modified":"2021-04-05T08:59:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T12:59:31","slug":"beating-the-high-cost-of-staying-cool-our-ac-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/air-conditioning-service\/beating-the-high-cost-of-staying-cool-our-ac-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Beating the High Cost of Staying Cool: Our AC Tips!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"ac-unit-money-pile\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The cost of heating a home in Florida during the year can be steep. Not only do we have intensely hot summers, we also have high humidity that makes it even hard for people to stay cool. Our summers are also long<\/em>, with hot weather stretching through both spring and fall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can\u2019t work any magic that will make cooling your home free. But we can offer some advice about lowering how much it costs to get through a summer with your air conditioning in Tampa, FL<\/a>. You may not have realized the way energy goes to waste and what you can do to turn it around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Always have spring AC maintenance<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Always, always, always.<\/em> If you only take away one tip from this post, make it this one: schedule AC maintenance before the main heat of the year arrives. AC maintenance does many great things for your cooling system, such as increase its longevity and prevent repairs. It also stops the AC from losing energy efficiency and becoming much more costly to run. Keeping up with maintenance will help your AC work at 95% of its original efficiency for most of its service life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set the thermostat for 78\u00b0F during the day<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that whenever the house feels too hot, you should push the thermostat lower. But the best thermostat setting is a steady one, which prevents the AC from turning on and off too frequently and draining power. The steady temperature we recommend (as does the US Department of Energy) is 78\u00b0F. This temperature is comfortable for most people, and it\u2019s high enough to slow down how fast heat enters the house. If you find it\u2019s too warm, set the thermostat a few degrees lower, and then raise it one degree per day until people acclimatize to 78\u00b0F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raise the thermostat at night<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Raise your thermostat setting by 8\u00b0F at night (i.e. around 86\u00b0F) to further save energy. You don\u2019t need as much cooling when you\u2019re asleep. This is also better than shutting the AC down entirely because it means less energy expended later when the AC has to start warming the house up for the day. We also recommend this setting for when you\u2019re away from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change the air filter every 1\u20133 months<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The air filter in the AC will clog after one to three months (depending on the thickness of the filter) and this will cause cooling costs to spike as the blower fan struggles to pull air through the filter. Keep up with a regular air filter change schedule through not only the summer, but the year, and you\u2019ll avoid unnecessary steep rises in cooling costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install a whole-house dehumidifier<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We can install a whole-house dehumidifier for your home that will help tremendously with comfort. If indoor humidity is too high, the house will feel around 8\u00b0F hotter than it is, making it necessary to run the AC more often. A dehumidifier makes for a cooler home with lower bills\u2014plus no water damage and less chance of mold growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Call The A\/C Guy of Tampa Bay Inc. for air conditioning service.<\/a> Serving our Tampa Bay family with integrity and honor.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may not have realized the way energy goes to waste and what you can do to turn it around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[117,45],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-conditioning-service","tag-air-conditioning-maintenance","tag-dehumidifiers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952,"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acguyoftampa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}